Aizel kicked her feet, trying to reposition herself. Instinctively, she breathed through her nose. Saltwater filled her lungs, stinging the back of her throat. The seal must have broken. It usually disappeared quickly when exposed to air.
She hastily broke above the surface again, coughing and choking.
Mola was frantic, his eyes rolling back and forth as he rotated his body on a vertical axis. He grabbed her tunic in his mouth and began to swim down, back to the safe depths.
Unable to breathe underwater, she frantically pushed herself away from him, trying to remove her clothing from his teeth. Her motions only frightened the poor fish more, and he held on tighter as he swam down, down, down. His safety was now dangerous for her, but of course, Mola didn’t understand that.
The water swirled around them as though they were still at the surface. Aizel felt the pressure in her ears grow more intense than she had ever experienced before.
Her lungs burned.
Bracing her feet against Mola, she shoved off against him. Thankfully, the threadbare fabric of her skirt gave way and she quickly pushed herself toward the light.
The ascent felt so much longer than going down, but she attributed it to her desperate need to breathe.
Finally, her head surfaced, and she breathed in desperate gulps of precious air.
As she wiped the wet hair from her face, the first thing she saw was land. But she had no time to rejoice in her success.
The shoreline was so far below her that the buildings looked like small sandcastles.
She was riding the ridge of the tallest wave she had ever seen, and it was carrying her with surprising swiftness toward shore.
From her vantage point, she could see two ships. One was behind her, and it had the familiar sails of the ships she saw sailing to the port of Istroya. Only taskers rode those ships.
On the other side of the wave, close to the shore, she saw another ship, its style and shape unfamiliar to her. She had no idea who was on the second ship. Not that it mattered. In a few moments, it would be crushed in the jaws of the wave she was riding.
As soon as she’d registered these thoughts, the tension of the water under her changed. Her view of the land and ships disappeared as white bubbling foam erupted around her. Some invisible force had forced the water behind her to crest the wave, rolling it in on itself.
Having spent most of her life in the sea, she was able to ride the wave rather than get sucked down into it.
Cutting through the thunderous noises of the crashing water, she heard an earsplitting screech as the ship ahead of her crumpled beneath the water’s weight.
Without stopping to think, she plunged headfirst into the wave itself and rushed toward the sinking ship.
She had no time to sing the magic seal that allowed her to breathe underwater back into place, but she was still an expert diver.
Boards, ropes, and bodies swirled around her as she neared the destroyed ship. Many of the men were already stretching toward the surface, kicking their way back up. She glanced below her, looking for someone who needed her help.
A young man was sinking swiftly into the darkness below. He seemed to be stuck a large piece of the broken mast that was dragging him down.
With a powerful kick, Aizel followed him into the darkness.
He was struggling to disentangle himself from the rigging attached to the mast. Ropes twisted around his right arm and tightened further as he tried to tug himself free.
She reached out for him, briefly catching his frantic gaze.
Staring up at her in disbelief, his large brown eyes were filled with a desperate plea.
He was perhaps her age, but the fear on his face made him seem even younger.
She grabbed his arm, attempting to pull him back up but the heavy mast weighed him down.
She plucked at the web of ropes, pulling them off his arm one by one. Her lungs were already burning, and they had a long way up to get back to the surface—if she could free him in time. As her body cried for air, she wanted to take the ropes all at once and rip them away, but she knew that would only make matters worse.
At first, the young man helped her with his free hand, but after they had removed about five of the dozen loops, his hand stilled, floating eerily in the water.
“No, no, no!”Aizel thought.“Stay with me.”
